Squad news

THE PLANS FOR THE NEW SEASON

01 Jul 2010Depor Sport gave a hint about the 25 players that Lotina will use on the season 2010/11, while La Voz de Galicia predicts that the Basque coach will now base the game of the team in a 4-3-3 formation.

The first official day of the season 2010/11 brings a lot of information related to the configuration of Deportivo’s squad ahead of la liga debut. Firstly, Depor Sport printed a list of 24 players that coach Miguel Angel Lotina is planning to use during the campaign. There are no surprises at the goal, this since Aranzubia and Manu are the two goalies in the list.

At defense, the official paper of the club speculates that the four central defenders will be Lopo, Colotto, Ze Castro and Rochela. Piscu has just ended his contract with Depor, but there’s a clause in the previous deal that allows the club to automatically renew him for one year, the club already announced that it will execute the clause, therefore the Galician defender will still linked to the club, though he will probably go out loaned. The idea was to loan him out to Real Betis, but the Andalusian club is preferring b>Aythami Artiles, precisely the other central defender that Lotina has discarded for the new season.

At the sides, the idea of the coach is to still trusting in Manuel Pablo and Laure for the right sector at defense, the surprise is that Depor Sport predicts that Laure will be the starting choice for the coach, while Filipe and Raul Garcia are the alternatives for the left side. The paper warns out that if the Brazilian is sold within the next weeks the idea is to bring a new element to fill the gap.

There are four alternatives for midfield: Juca, Juan Dominguez, Antonio Tomas and Juan Rodriguez. Sergio is out of the list since his contract has expired, while in recent hours the name of Daisuke Matsui (29, Grenoble) has been mentioned as the possible fifth midfielder. He is ending contract and will come for free after playing the World Cup, but a lot of clubs are chasing him and it seems like a very improbable operation. Meanwhile Alex Bergantiños is once again discarded, and actually the same player announced in his Twitter page that he is currently searching for a club.

For the playmaking function Deportivo has three options: Valerón, Michel and Ivan Pérez, though this last one could be loaned out in the attempt to give him more minutes. The left wing is reserved for Guardado and for new signing Yves Desmarets, while the idea of Lotina is to use Urreta on the right wing alongside Pablo Alvarez.

At third choice in this side of the pitch will be Saul, he has just ended contract with Elche and his signing could be announced within the next days, so for the moment he is out of the list presented by Depor Sport. This means that his entry will raise the number of players to twenty-five, the maximum accepted by la liga, which also means that any new signing will led to discard any of the current members of the first team, though it’s also true that left-back Raul is inscribed as a B team player and won’t be counted as part of the official list at the first squad.

In attack, Lotina counts with three choices: Adrian, Lassad and Riki; the two discards are Ruben Castro and Rodolfo Bodipo. For the moment the idea of the club is to loan them out, but it shouldn’t be discarded a final transfer or even the possibility to release them.

In other news La Voz de Galicia wrote that the plans of Lotina is to base the game of the team in a 4-3-3 formation, though he is also planning to test the 4-3-2-1, same scheme that ended to be the “normal” draw during last season. The plan is to delay the position of Guardado to midfield, to play with one central attacker, one playmaker performing towards the wing and with Juan Dominguez working as a pivote.

Lotina himself explained the issue to La Voz, “During the summer we will test both schemes and will take a final decision based on how things go on; the 4-3-3 doesn’t mean to play with three strikers, actually it is to have once central attacker and another performing towards the wing, just like Adrian does. With the habitual system Guardado is more close to the wing and performing in an advanced position, reason why he receives the ball when he is backwards the goal. Now, if he’s more delayed on the pitch and with more space in front of him, he will be better.”